


a good exit

by zeitgeistofnow



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: 1920s AU, Fluff, LOOK ANOTHER ONESE, M/M, junos a habdasher!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 08:25:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13209816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeitgeistofnow/pseuds/zeitgeistofnow
Summary: juno’s a habdasher who happens to be at the right speakeasy at the right time.also peter’s chill.for tumblr user bellandpebbles!!! ily!





	a good exit

There was someone there that Peter hadn’t seen before. There were always people Peter hadn’t seen before, and that’s part of how he passed his time- judging if they were people he’d like to see again. 

This person, Peter could already tell, was someone he’d like to see again. They were hunched over with a newspaper- the saddest looking flapper he’d seen since Evie last year- and nursing a stout glass of something amber. Peter glanced at his own drink- bright pink with a lemon dangling precariously, and thought,  _ well, they say opposites attract.  _

Peter’s current conversation partner- a tall man with bright green eyes and a droning voice- tapped Peter’s shoulder. “Are you listening to me?”

“Yes, yes, of  _ course,  _ Jason. You were saying something about the imminent disaster with the stock market?”

Jason looked satisfied and started talking again. Peter, personally, thought he was screwy, but he thought Jason’s eyes were too pretty for him to disagree with something he obviously felt strongly about. 

The stranger in the corner had pretty eyes too, although the cloche hat they were wearing was pulled down over their forehead- not how it was supposed to be worn, but Peter was not in the business of fixing his customers hats. 

“All past experience suggests that the prices of-”

“Mmhm…” Peter hummed, taking a sip of his drink. “Jason, doll, I gotta go see a man about a dog.”

Jason looked doubtfully at Peter’s drink. “You have a drink already.”

Peter winked at Jason. “Then I’ve just gotta go see a man. Bye-ski!”

“I wasn’t finished,” Jason mumbled.

Peter waved a hand. “I’m not leaving forever, doll. You’re coming back to my place tonight, aren’t you?” He didn’t wait for an answer- he’d eat his hat if it’s anything other than a stuttered ‘yes’- and walked over to the stranger. 

“Hey, doll. What’re you doing in a place like this?” Peter leaned against their table. 

The stranger looked up and flapped his newspaper. “Reading about the latest murder. What’s it look like?”

“Couldn’t tell, I was too busy staring at your face.”

“Don’t see why, when you could be listening to your sheik.”

The man glanced at Jason and Peter was irritated because the man should be looking at him, not Jason. 

“Oh, him?” Peter waved a hand absently. “He’s just a friend. What about you? Brought anyone with you?”

The man folds up his newspaper. “They brought me, really, and left me at the first pretty person they found.”

Peter slid into the chair across from the stranger and flashed his best smile. “I can’t imagine anyone abandoning you.”

He’d made a mistake. He did that sometimes when he was flirting, and usually he repaired it by simply never seeing the person again. 

The man grimaced. “I bet you can’t.” There’s an undertone to it, a  _ but I can  _ in the statement. Peter, struck with sudden desire to not leave the man, pushed the other man’s hat back. 

The man startled and touched the brow of his cloche hat. 

Peter grinned. “Level with me. I’m Peter, so what’s your name?”

The man stands up, leaving his glass and newspaper, and flicks a business card at Peter, then walked away. Peter caught it and glanced at the cardstock.

_ Juno Steel, Private Investigator _

At least now he knew what he was dealing with. Peter smiled at the empty seat across from him. 

  
  
  


Juno hadn’t drunk much last night. After encountering Peter, he had left the joint and walked around downtown, quietly cursing at himself for leaving his drink and paper in the speakeasy. He would have gone back in for it, but nothing ruins a good exit like coming back, and if nothing else, Juno had wanted to make an impression on Peter. He had given Peter his… well, his aspiration card. 

He wasn’t a PI. He liked solving crimes and was even half good at it, but the police thought he was a bother, and he owned a hat shop and wasn’t rich enough to hire someone to work there full time while he waltzed around town looking at dead bodies and talking to cheated husbands. But when he met handsome strangers, he said he was a PI, because he could hold up the act if they didn’t see him again and haberdashers are just plain boring. 

Juno hadn’t drunk much last night, but his assistant, who had taken him out, had, and she was irritating his customers. 

“Rita, if your damn head hurts so much, leave. I’ll take over,” he snapped. “Go price some of the new hats we got.”

“Oh, Mistah Steel, I don’t wanna  _ bother  _ you…” Rita’s pained expression made it quite clear that she didn’t give an elephant's eyebrow about bothering people, but she had grown up in a small town with people who cared about being polite.

Juno hadn’t grown up with someone who cared about politeness. “Sure you don’t, but you are.”

Rita, obviously relieved, picked up her java and walked out into the back room. Juno walked over to a woman perusing hats, savoring the ‘clickclickclick’ his heels made on the floor.

“Can I help you, miss?” he said, glancing at her hair and then at the hats around him, and then he noticed how she held herself, like a bull in a china shop. He raised an eyebrow. “Or are you lost?”

The lady spun around, leaning against the wall and knocking over a mannequin. Juno reached over and caught it, setting it carefully back in its place. The woman looked worried for a second, then relieved. 

“Do you work here?”

Juno nodded, repositioning the hat. 

“I need your help.”

“I can tell,” Juno said dryly. The woman wasn’t wearing a hat of her own- her black hair was swooping over her forehead. “Looking for a hat?”

“I should think so, considering I’m here.”

Juno didn’t get customers like this very often, but they were his favorite, and not only because he could usually get them to buy an obnoxiously expensive hat. He liked how they were completely out of their element, but still tried to shop, usually because they were in love. 

Juno found people in love fascinating.

“What kind hat are you looking for?”

“The kind you wear on your head.”

“Who are you shopping for?”

“The wife.”

A quirk of these customers is that they tended to refer to their spouse as ‘the husband’. “Of course,” Juno granted. “And what does your wife look like?”

“Tight. Beautiful.” the woman said brusquely. “Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?”

If people knew Juno from somewhere, it was generally a bad place. “What does your wife’s hair look like?” he said, ignoring her last question. 

“Blonde, I think. I  _ have  _ seen you before.”

“You  _ think? _ ”

“It was…” she drummed her fingers on a dark blue hatbox. “It was last night! You were reading the newspaper.”

“What’s your wife’s eye color?”

“Scarlet. You know, you were wearing a nice hat that night.”

“Scarlet?”

“No, did I say scarlet? I meant blue. What’d you say your name is?”

“Steel.”

The woman stuck out her hand. “Valles Vicky. I own the joint downtown next to Peter’s.”

Juno knew what she’s talking about. It wasn’t somewhere Rita’s mother would approve of her going. He didn’t take Vicky’s hand. 

“I’m in the business of giving people what they want.” she continued, and added thoughtfully, “if I like them.”

Juno held up a toque hat with a peacock feather coming out of the rim and Vicky dismissed it with a wave. “Much too conservative.”

She examined a dark red cloche hat that would look terrible on anything with a pulse. Juno tugged it away from her. “What do you want, Juno?” 

Juno laughed dryly. “Money. Fame. Love. What does anyone want?”

Vicky raised an eyebrow. “Which of those? I’m not a genie, you only get one wish.”

“Money.” This was an immediate response. Juno’s just barely ahead of his bills and there’s only so many people buying hats. He’d fire Rita if he had the heart. 

Vicky grinned delightedly. “I can do that.” she pulled a notebook out of her satchel and wrote down an address. “He can help you.”

Juno took the paper and stuffed it in his pocket. “Do you want a hat, or not?”

Vicky cocked her head. “That one, please. And can you wrap it? It’s the wife’s birthday.”

It was one of Juno’s favorite hats, black with silk flowers and three glass jewels. He might have misjudged her taste. “Swell choice.”

The paper sat on Juno’s desk for a week. 

  
  


It’s been a week, and Peter was up in his home-office, perusing files he got from the HCPD, looking for mentions of his speakeasy so that he can remove them. There hadn’t been any yet, but he was only halfway through, and he had heard from a reliable source that someone gave the cops the goods on his ‘establishment’. Juno’s card was tacked onto a corkboard Peter has, underneath a copy of the twenty-first amendment and next to a picture of Peter and his cat.

There was a knock at the front door downstairs, and Peter called to his business partner, Pilot, to grab the door. 

“Ab-so-lute-ly, Pete,” they called back, managing, somehow, to sound suave, even while yelling across a building. Peter ground his teeth at the name ‘Pete’. He didn’t like his own name that much, and shortenings of it felt like unnecessary torture. But Pilot was the one that pays off the cops that find out about them and Peter’s blind pig, so he can’t get rid of him. And they’re not that bad.

Peter went back to reading through the file, aware that Pilot’s going to take care of whoever it is, and if he can’t, then it’s either one of Peter’s past flings- maybe Jason, he mused. Or it’s the police. He hoped it’s the first.

It wasn’t either, though. It was Juno Steel, the PI from a week ago. Peter was surprised to see him. He thought Juno was going to be one of those people he never saw again. Juno was looking a slip of notebook paper when he walked in, muttering to himself. “You have a criminal who’s on the lam answering your door,” he said pointedly, still not looking up. “You should probably do background checks-”

Peter laughed. “Oh, I do. We’re all criminals here.”

Juno looked up. He was wearing a bright red cloche with a silk rose clipped to it, and looked genuinely upset that it was Peter behind the desk. 

“What’s eating you, doll?”

“Nothing. I’ve been told you can give me money.”

Peter leaned back. “Sure I can, but the kale’s not free.”

Juno leaned back too- warily. “What do you want for it?”

Peter paused. “You’re a PI.”

“Correct.”

“You can do detective work.”

“Ab-so-lute-ly.”

Peter steepled his fingers. Wonderful. See, I’ve got this problem. There’s a man who can find me, and I need him to… not be able to find me.”

“You need me to help you move?”

“Nothing about me leaving, more about him… being indisposed.”

Juno spun on his heel. “Forget it. I’m not some bounty hunter.”

“I just need you to find him.” Peter felt Juno’s interest in him slipping away and scrambled to recatch it. 

“And what will you do with him once I find him?” Juno stopped in the doorway, the beads trimming his dress click together softly. 

“Nothing illegal. I’m not into bumping off people. Bribery, maybe. Probably.” Peter stood up and started pacing. “Something inconsequential.”

“Why are you going though the effort of it keeping out of the police’s clutches? You obviously don’t need the money.” Juno walked back to Peter and Peter grinned. 

“Boredom, to a certain extent. The fact that other people do need the money, and that I can hire them. If you want to pretend I’m a cold blooded criminal who only works for themselves, it’s so I can meet more people.”

“Like me.”

“I rarely meet people as interesting as you, if that’s what you’re asking. But yes.” Peter’s met some fascinating people over the years: an anthropologist who was determined to end the world, a woman who only went by the name of a deadly tropical fish, and Pilot Pereyra, half a year after he started the joint.

Peter walked toward Juno. It had been years since the last time he truly cared about what someone thought about him, but he did care about the impression he left on the short man in front of him. His ring finger grazed Juno’s shoulder. 

“So, what do you say, my dear hatter?”

Juno jerked back. “I thought you thought I was a PI.”

“Do you take me for a sap? There’s no way you’re a private eye.”

“Why not?”

Peter grabbed one of Juno’s hands and held it up. “Your hands are too soft, and your hats too nice to be a private eye.”

Juno yanked his hand back and grumbled. Peter smiled. “And besides, I always look into the people I meet. You’d be amazed how much you can find in a simple look-through of the police captain’s office.”

“You work with the cops?”

“Nah, but I’ve got a rather nice lock-picking set. Pilot bought it for my birthday last year.”

Juno’s not quite used to any side of the law other than ‘keep out of their way and they’ll keep out of yours’ and it’s apparent on his face. Peter took pity on him.

“Look, bunny, it’s clear you’re keen on the idea of the life of law, but maybe it’s not your thing,” he said gently. “You’ve got a nice hat shop, I can give you some spare cash, tell Pilot you found out and needed to be paid off. You’ll be fine.”

 

The other option, Juno found, was in his eyes, and his rings, and everything about the man in front of Juno.  _ Or you can stay here. With me.  _

He could sell the hat shop- probably get about five grand- or he could give it to Rita. Move in with Peter and help him find the man he was looking for. Spend his life on the lam- almost. Spend the next who-knows-how-long with Peter and his bejeweled fingers and fancy office.

Two options. A yes-or-no question. Binary. 

But you know what Juno’s learned, over a couple decades of existing?

There’s never only two choices. Binary’s a joke, and yes-or-no questions are usually laced with ‘buts’ and ‘althoughs’ and ‘if this, though’. 

Because although Juno had aspirations, he also had his hat shop, which he liked, and a few friends, who he wasn’t keen on leaving for a thief he met a week ago. 

So Juno leaned over to Peter and kissed him, then walked out of the office, leaving him shell-shocked behind. He waved to Pilot and notified them that he’d be back soon, and reminding himself that he would because Peter wasn’t going to forget him now. 

And he didn’t look back that day, because nothing ruins a good exit like coming back. 

  
  
  


(epilogue because you’re my friend and i was planning on fluff so here’s this?? I guess??? It’s like a month later.)

 

“Brought you a hat, Nureyev. I’ve been getting complaints at the blind pig about your lack of proper head coverings. People’ll think you’re improper.” Juno dropped a slouch hat on Peter’s desk. 

“They’re in an illegal establishment and they’re ragging on my dress?” His feet were propped up on the desk. He’d gotten his shoes shined this morning and Juno could see him still admiring them. 

“Seems so. And it’s gotten out that I’m your beau, apparently, so I’ve been getting the complaints. Wear a damn hat, Nureyev.”

Peter took the hat and looked at it from an angle. “You couldn’t have gotten something a bit more interesting?”

“You really want to be conspicuous?”

“I see your point. You get Pilot a hat too?”

“They’ve got an army of hats, they can pay.” Juno leaned on the desk. “I found something on our guy. Seems he left the country.”

“He’s on the run, eh?” Nureyev drummed his fingers on the table. “He’s making this difficult.”

Juno threw up his hands. “You’re making this harder than it needs to be. He’s in Germany, he’s not going to rat you out to the HCPD.”

“We should track him down just in case,” Peter insisted. “Besides, you’ve never told me what your plan is after we find him.” 

Juno peered at Peter. Peter looked back at him. “You’re worried!” He deduced. “You think I’m going to leave you.”

Peter crossed his arms. “Baloney. I don’t care what you do. And besides, who would leave me?”

Juno did the closest thing to a grin he ever did. “I can’t imagine anyone abandoning you.”

Peter looked up from his shoes. “Are you including yourself in that list?”

“Of course. I’m nothing special. I’m not going to be the one person with the capacity to leave you. Rita would worry herself to death.”

Peter straightened his vest and stood up. “She likes me, doesn’t she.”

“She likes everyone,” Juno pointed out, fingering one of the files on Peter’s desk. 

“But me  _ especially. _ ” Peter put his hand over Juno’s.

“If you want a compliment, just say so. I’m not really into double-talk.”

“I can see why you didn’t go into politics.”

Juno leaned back from Peter to laugh. “There are  _ so  _ many reasons I didn’t go into politics. The chief one being that people don’t like their co workers calling them corrupt.”

Peter chuckled too- Nureyev was the only person Juno knew who chuckled instead of laughing. 

“I’ve got some more cases I’ll need help with, if you’d like to abandon our Germany-bound friend,” Nureyev murmured. 

“I just might take you up on that offer.” Juno said.

“Of course, the offer only stands under the condition that you continue supplying hats for me.”

“Picking hats for you is the only thing that keeps me and Rita sane on slow days.”

Peter smiled at Juno. “Glad to be of assistance.”


End file.
